


The Panic Room

by lattedi



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Undertones, Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, Fear, I think????, Ranboo Has Dream In His Head, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Reminiscent of a Mild Panic Attack, after finding out what derealization is, based on his livestream, can i give his character a hug pls, i can safely say that this is a mild tw for it, i love him sm, mild derealization, no really like most of it is dialogue OOPS, poor ranboo, recent as of 1/10/2021, so spoilers for that, titled "making it feel like home", wow i did this so fast?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28683243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lattedi/pseuds/lattedi
Summary: Ranboo plunged into the cold water, letting it wrap around him as he swam towards his room of obsidian, his Panic Room. It felt like it was hugging him lightly, the only substance that actually would hug someone like him, and it wasn't even living.As he landed on the black blocks of his safe haven, he looked at the signs upon the wall. He didn't know whether to burst into tears or scoff.He looked at one of the signs on the wall and almost panicked at his own untidy handwriting, reminding him of something that he would always fear he had disobeyed."Don't choose sides, choose people."ORRanboo... is going through itBased on the recent livestream as of 1/10/2021, titled "Making it feel like home"! So spoilers for that
Comments: 19
Kudos: 187





	The Panic Room

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Ranboo's stream and the lore within and speedran it (DUDUDUDU)
> 
> Go watch it if you haven't already!!! Have fun reading i guess <33
> 
> also, this has a (i think mild???) tw for derealization! pls be careful <33

Ranboo plunged into the cold water, letting it wrap around him as he swam towards his room of obsidian, his Panic Room. It felt like it was hugging him lightly, the only substance that actually would hug someone like him, and it wasn't even living.

As he landed on the black blocks of his safe haven, he looked at the signs upon the wall. He didn't know whether to burst into tears or scoff.

The messy scrawl on the first one with all capital letters, "DREAM IS THE REASON", invaded his eyes. He may have bad memory, but that thought was engraved into his brain forever.

He turned towards the others and almost panicked at his own untidy handwriting, reminding him of something that he would always fear he had disobeyed.

"Don't choose sides, choose people."

Ranboo's heart plummeted every time he made a choice, wondering if he had chosen for a side rather than a person, worried that he would break his own rule, his one and only law.

He looked at the rest of his own signs. "God," he said to himself, and he laughed softly.

His cat meowed at him as he stared at the words he had written on the sign. _I don't know,_ his brain said, and it was true. He hadn't known at the time that he had written it, and he still didn't know.

He tore his eyes away from the sign and opened the book, _his_ book, and he looked at the stupid smiley face that Dream had written there, in _his_ book, with _his_ quill. 

It made Ranboo mad, knowing that someone that he despised so greatly had found one of his most important belongings.

And suddenly, he heard Dream say, "Hello." He knew that Dream wasn't in the room, but he almost threw the book anyway.

The Dream in his mind, if that was even possible - could there be a Dream in his mind, a voice floating around, severed from the real Dream? - waited for him to respond.

All he could say was a quiet "You're back?"

He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe that he could hold someone so terrible and violent in his mind, and he didn't even want to believe that Dream himself existed. 

"Well, I mean, I never left," Dream replied. 

Ranboo felt a shiver go down his spine at that. "What do you mean you never left?" 

"I'm in your head. I'm here all the time." He said it so casually, as though it should have been obvious that he was always there, and it was, but it wasn't at the same time. Ranboo felt like he was going to pass out any minute now, the fear already consuming him.

"How long have you been in my head?"

"I mean, forever. I'm just you," Dream stated. 

That sentence haunted him. Dream was him, he was Dream. A manipulative terrorist and Ranboo were the same person.

"But that..." Ranboo stopped, and his brain fogged over. It was a couple more seconds before he could get anything out.

"That doesn't make any sense, though, because why _now,_ all of a sudden, did you just randomly appear?"

"Well, I mean..." Dream's voice seemed cautious, careful. He was _thinking._

That never meant anything good.

"You're looking at your book, you're looking at the smile, you're thinking about Dream..."

There was a heavy silence. Ranboo kept looking at the smile in his book, written in black ink.

"You think about Dream a _lot,"_ Dream said, and it sounded like he was teasing him, but at the same time he wasn't, because it was true. Ranboo _did_ think about Dream a lot, because he was the one who had caused everything to come crashing down.

And that's exactly what Ranboo said next. "Yeah, I _do_ think about him a lot, because he's the reason why everything is going wrong, he's the reason why there's conflict on this server."

Dream hummed. "Do you really believe that?"

Ranboo shuddered at the tone of Dream's voice, accusatory but not, taunting, sarcastic.

"I mean... yeah. He- if, if it wasn't for Dream, everyone- there wouldn't be one power everyone would go against."

"Well, what are some of the bad things Dream has done?"

Ranboo was torn between listing them and staying silent. Dream knew something that he didn't, that he wasn't ready for, but there was so much that he needed to say.

"Well... I mean-" Ranboo started pacing back and forth. "He fights against Tommy and Tubbo all the time, he starts wars, blew up L'manberg, the community house..." his voice faltered and trailed off.

"Well. You blew up the community house." Even though he knew he hadn't, the fear still invaded his brain.

"But Dream blew up L'manberg, and Techno did too, and so did Philza, but you're not complaining about them."

Of course that stupid voice in Ranboo's brain had to make a good point, but Ranboo had friends, people who cared about him, and the two of them may have blown up L'manberg, but they were still his friends.

Weren't they?

"Well... the thing is, they wouldn't have needed- L'manberg wouldn't have needed to exist if you didn't... if you didn't do that." Ranboo knew he was addressing the wrong Dream, but he didnt care. "And I didn't blow up the community house, I know that I didn't do that."

"Okay, well-" 

Ranboo got louder so he wouldn't have to hear Dream. "There's no way that I could've done that, because you know I'm not that type of person."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know you're not that type of person, but... but you _did_ do it. I mean... your memory's just poor."

Ranboo thought about it for a moment, and Dream was right, but he was also wrong.

"My memory's- my memory's interesting... I remember big stuff, I would have remembered if I blew up the house, I mean..." 

He was pacing faster now, his body finally moving just as fast as his mind.

"Well, you do remember. This is you."

The only thing that filled the next silence was a quiet bark from Ranboo's dog.

"Y-yeah, but... how? How come you remember stuff that I don't?"

"Well... I think it's complicated."

Ranboo almost screamed; that was the vaguest answer Dream could have _possibly_ given. That part was obvious, but he wanted to know _why._

He forced his tone to be calm and said, "Yeah, definitely."

"Your brain's a funny place." There was a clear smile in Dream's voice when he said it, but it was fake, a placeholder.

"Yeah," Ranboo muttered in response.

"I dunno, I mean there's obviously two sides of you."

"Oh no, there's no, I'm- no," Ranboo said, his words running into each other. "You're just whatever happens when I panic, this is the _Panic_ Room, and I've only talked to you here, so it's obvious that you're not- you must be- it has to be just something with my past and why this is happening. There's no way that you have any reason to be here."

His breaths were fast, and his hands felt sweaty. 

"I don't like you here, I'm gonna be honest!" he finally burst out. "I really-"

Dream cut him off. "Well, I'm here all the time, it's just you never open your mind to me unless you're in the Panic Room. You don't let me talk unless you're in the Panic Room. You don't listen to me, even if I _scream,_ you don't listen, unless you're in this room."

"But I don't... I don't _want_ to talk to you." Ranboo's voice shook as he spoke. "You tell me things that I apparently did, but I don't... I don't think that I did those things, I mean..."

His head felt dizzy, overflowing with terrified thoughts and what-if's.

"What else have I done, Dream, because apparently there's more. There must be more if there's an entire..." Ranboo didn't have any words to continue his sentence.

"Well, I mean, you helped Dream with the TNT he used to blow up L'manberg. You helped Dream blow up the community house," Dream stated calmly.

Ranboo didn't understand how he could say that _calmly,_ how he could tell someone that he had helped his worst enemy.

He didn't believe it, either. Dream was lying.

"You helped Techno survive L'manberg, and he blew up L'manberg as well, and these are some of the things that you're blaming on Dream."

"So I've been-" 

The words tasted foul in his mouth.

"I've been helping Dream?"

"Yeah, you've helped Dream all the time."

His heart leapt into his throat.

"No. No, nonononono. There's no way that I've been- why would I help _Dream?"_

"You tell me," Dream murmured. 

"Dream is the reason why there's _conflict,_ Dream is the reason why my friends aren't able to just be happy. Why would I be helping him this entire time?"

"That's something you should ask yourself."

"I mean, i _am_ asking myself! If you're part of me, then I _am_ asking myself right now."

Dream was silent for a moment, then began to speak.

"You're asking the wrong part of yourself."

"But-"

"Mine the wall," Dream said, seemingly offhandedly.

"Mine the wall? What do you mean, 'mine the wall'?"

"Just mine the wall."

Ranboo took his netherite pickaxe that was leaning against the wall and threw it against the obsidian until it broke. 

Lying behind it was a chest. 

"What is this?" he said in disbelief.

"Open it." 

Ranboo's hands shook as he unlatched the chest. Pulling the lid up, he looked inside and saw two blocks of TNT.

He gaped at them, and suddenly everything was crashing down. He had broken his own rule, he had taken a side, and it was his _enemy's._

"No, no, no. There's no way that I _helped_ with this!"

But the proof was right there. He had mined in the exact spot of the chest, and how would he know exactly where to mine if it wasn't his chest?

None of it felt real, nothing about this felt real. Maybe Ranboo was dreaming. The world didn't even feel real.

He buried his face in his hands. "My friends aren't able to be happy because of Dream, and there's no way that I've helped him." His voice came out muffled by his own shaking hands.

"You're friends with everybody. You're the one who said you didn't want to pick a side," Dream said.

"Yeah, but there's a difference between not being on Dream's side- I can be on Dream's side without helping him blow up things!" Ranboo's voice shattered his own ears. _Don't choose sides, choose people, choose people, choose people,_ his brain screamed. 

"I mean, you didn't help him. You did it yourself."

He almost passed out right then. "So you're saying that I did these things solo?"

"Well, no," Dream said. "You did the community house solo."

"But- but why would I just randomly do that? If I did that, I'd be working with Dream, because there's no way that I would just do that on my own!" Ranboo's chest hurt. He felt like he was dying.

"I'm sure you had your reasons, but you don't remember them now- I mean, how did Dream get your memory book?"

Ranboo's voice trembled. "I don't know. I- I can't remember why."

"I can tell you why, it's because you handed it to him."

He could feel his heart drop to the ground and shatter, and he stopped breathing.

"Why would I do that?" Ranboo said weakly. "I wouldn't do that, but- why would I give him the book, to my own demise? Because-" 

And suddenly, his brain stopped working. 

"They all see me as traitors now. They're all gonna see me- even though they know that... even if they say that they don't see me as a traitor, they're gonna remember. They're gonna remember that I'm a traitor. Why would I give him the book that makes everyone turn against me?"

"You just have to try and remember why. You have to think. You have to remember. Just remember."

He could barely hear Dream; he was too lost in his own thoughts. His brain had started working again, and it was yelling possible outcomes at him, wailing that it was over, it was all over.

He faintly heard Dream say the word "remember" a few times and stop speaking.

"I- can't... I can't remember, I can't- I don't know _how_ to remember, I don't, I don't-"

And suddenly Ranboo realized that Dream was gone, he was gone again. He couldn't get the answers he needed now. He shook in the middle of the room, hugging himself so hard it hurt. 

All he knew now was that he had betrayed everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed! Leave a kudo or a comment if you want :) take care of yourselves, drink some water, get some rest!! Stay safe :D
> 
> Also, if you want to follow me on twitter... its @/kinwilbursoot (and i dont kin the actual person, i mean like the character <3)
> 
> Also,,,, ranboo is goin through it rn. Who wants to hold hands, cry, and give ranboo a hug and a cookie
> 
> -J


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